Part 2: How they became a Family!
(Abby’s long explanation to Kate)

My grandparents died when my dad was twenty and my Uncle Tony was nine. I was born six months after they died. My parents had already been married for close to three years when my grandparents died. There was never any discuss about where Uncle Tony was going to live. Uncle Tony lived with my parents after my grandparents died. My dad and Uncle Tony have always been very close. He is also very close to my mother. In fact Uncle Tony was in the delivery room when I was born. My father was overseas at the time. He was not able to make it back until I was two weeks old.

Tony was home schooled by first my grandmother and then my mother and a tutor when he was a child. He is smarter than me and when he was very young he had trouble socially at school because he was so smart. In fact he started college at fifteen and if it hadn’t been for my cousins and me he would have had his degree by the time he was eighteen.

One day when I was five Tony meet Gibbs as we were walking back from the playground. My mother had started working full time the year before and Uncle Tony took care of me during the day when she was working. On our walk back we stopped to say hi to my dad and to ask what he wanted for dinner. He introduced us to Gibbs. Gibbs had just been transferred to the base and Uncle Tony invited him over for dinner.

At the time I didn’t really understand it but looking back I think that it was love at first sight. Uncle Tony back then tended to be very shy and it was unusual for him to invite someone over. After that they were pretty much attached at the hip at all times. There were many comments made that I could not understand at the time about robbing the cradle and many fights about Uncle Tony’s age. They had only known each other for a few months when they got engaged right after Uncle Tony’s fifteenth birthday. I can remember one really bad fight that I was there for. It was about four months before they got married when they got into a horrible argument about Uncle Tony being a child and about Uncle Jet not knowing how to communicate. Jet said that Tony was too immature to be in a relationship and Tony said that Jet didn’t know how to have a relationship as anyone could tell by how many times he had been divorced. Uncle Jet took off for a few weeks and Uncle Tony fell apart. A few days after the fight Uncle Tony collapsed in the middle of my sixth birthday party right in front of me. My dad and he rushed Uncle Tony to the hospital. That was when I found out that I was going to have a cousin. My dad hunted Uncle Jet down and got him to come to his senses.

They had another argument about staying together. Uncle Tony did not want Uncle Jet to stick around just because he was knocked up. It took them a little while but everything went back to normal. Uncle Tony had a lot of problems with his pregnancy and had to take it easy. On Uncle Tony’s sixteenth birthday they got married. My cousin Julia was born three months later.

When my cousin was six months old he started college part time going in the mornings. After school I still went to their house. I probably spent more time at their house then I did at my own house. My mom loved me but Uncle Tony was the fun one in the family and he was more of the mothering type. In the next five years he had several miscarriages. The last miscarriage almost killed him. Uncle Jet was overseas for six months at the time and Uncle Tony collapsed in the middle of the night. No one found him until morning when my dad was dropping me off. My dad found out that Uncle Tony’s doctor had put him on bed rest but that Uncle Tony had not been listening. At that point he was going to school full time at this point during the days when me and Julia were in school, doing everything that needed to be done in the afternoons while taking care of us and working nights.

After this Uncle Jet retired and started working for NCIS so that he could be home more. Uncle Tony took a semester off from school and was not working outside the home any more. He finished up his degree the next semester. Nine years ago when Julia was eight and I was fourteen my cousins L.J. (Leroy Jethro) and Liam (William) were born. This was the easiest pregnancy that Uncle Tony has had so far. When they were two Uncle Tony started working part time and then full time for the police department during the day when all the kids were at school. He quit the department after he had another bad miscarriage. Six years ago my cousin Danny was born and then three years ago my cousin Eric was born.

Uncle Tony has always done everything at home and always been all of the kids’ primary caretakers. Even before my mother died I lived with him and Uncle Jet. When my father was promoted and stationed over seas I was given the option of staying here with them. It was almost a joke in my family that my parents had a kid for my uncle. I lived with them until two years ago when I got my own apartment and my room is still my room at home. I still tend to spend several nights a month at home.

Uncle Jet loved him but he tends to be too much of a workaholic. Uncle Jet has always taken Tony for granted and Uncle Tony loves him too much to really do anything about it. That is not to say that he never fights back because Uncle Jet’s head has been hit with a golf club, a pan, a rolling pin and several other things. It is usually the only way to get Uncle Jet’s head out of his ass.

Julia is really angry with her dad right now because Uncle Tony is pregnant again and it is never easy for him. All the stress lately is making it even worse for him I believe. Uncle Tony will forgive him once he calms down but don’t be shocked if Tony quits his job now. He is much happier being a stay at home husband but he feels many times that he should help out.